Bollywood Night. What can I say? Spawned from the idea of Mexican Night that we did on the street last October, this time the theme was...well, the clue is in the title. The food was Indian, and the costumes were as outrageously Bollywood as we could manage. Now last time, we had the piss taken mercilessly because we were the only ones who didn't make an effort and dress the part. This time round we were determined to do things properly, and Nikki found a fabulous online store for Indian costume - Rupali - which also happened to be fabulously cheap AND had a sale on on top of that!
Here are the results:Nikki's is a Salwar suit, with a shawl and some traditional jewellery, and "John is wearing" a traditional kurta. We also managed to find a couple of pashminas and some more sparkly jewellery for the girls, who selected appropriate tops and bottoms from their own wardrobe to set them off.
The progression around the street was still very logical, but we started on the other side, travelled all the way down to the end, around the corner to our perpendicular neighbours, and then back around the corner and up our side of the street, finishing up back at the same end we started, but opposite. Hope you followed that. Eight houses in all, about 40 minutes per house, and it meant we were second-to-last which made things very easy for us. I hope no-one thought it was a cop-out but we just paid a visit to the Sanam Sweet Centre in Rusholme and bought a very large plate of Indian sweets. Three kilos, to be precise.
Naturally this was way too much. By the time we'd all eaten our way through the six preceding houses we were feeling pretty full so the sweets were picked over and we were left with piles to eat with our Sunday afternoon movies (no bad thing as it happens *vbg*). Strangely as it turned out very few people made a "traditional" curry. The first house started off, naturally enough, with poppadums, onion bhajias and samosas, with some rather fine minty yoghurt and all the traditional bits and pieces. The next house (the only REAL Indian family in the street) treated us to some home-made dough balls and a delicious fried spicy cabbage starter that is virtually a staple in that part of India their families originate from. Next we were treated to some spicy kebabs of various kinds - fish, chicken and veggie and finally, at the fourth house, we enjoyed a "proper" curry - a fabulous chick-pea dish with rice which I couldn't resist going back for more of. Twice over. Stir fry tofu at the fifth house (which I avoided), a rather splendid home-made sorbet at house #6, then us (with our streaming, Internet-enabled XBox tuned to a Bhangra station on Shoutcast), and finally a virtual banquet of cheesecake, home-made dough fingers in honey and fruit salad that struggled to be "Indian" but was nonetheless delicious.
The evening ended shortly after 1am, and looking back although it was all really enjoyable, eight houses (two more than last time) felt a little rushed. We never really had chance to settle in any one house and everyone always had their eyes on the clock. With so many extra houses, together with their extra people, simply serving up the food to everyone and eating it took up almost all of the 40 minutes leaving little time for just sitting back and enjoying the occasion.We've somehow been nominated to organise the next one - a Greek night - and I think we'll try to restrict the number of houses to bring a bit more relaxation to the party. Even so, a cracking night which has cemented the idea of "themed party" foodie nights on the street for some time to come.
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